FIG. 1 depicts a portion of a conventional magnetic transducer 10, such as a conventional write transducer, as viewed from the air-bearing surface (ABS). The conventional transducer 10 includes a nonmagnetic underlayer 12 that may reside on a bottom shield, a conventional write pole 14, a conventional write gap 16, a conventional NiCr seed layer 18 a conventional magnetic seed layer 20, and a conventional trailing shield 22. The conventional write gap 16 is nonmagnetic, as is the conventional NiCr seed layer 18. The conventional magnetic seed layer 20 typically consists of Co40Ni5Fe55. The conventional trailing shield typically has a high permeability and a high saturation magnetization.
Although the conventional magnetic recording transducer 10 functions, there are drawbacks particularly as the conventional transducer 10 is desired to be scaled to higher recording densities. For example, the conventional trailing shield 22 is also scaled to smaller dimensions. The tip of the conventional trailing shield 22 is the portion of the conventional trailing shield 22 at the ABS. This portion of the conventional trailing shield 22 is depicted in FIG. 1. At high densities, the conventional trailing shield tip 22 is desired to have a small throat height, or depth perpendicular to the plane of the page in FIG. 1. For example, the throat height may be on the order of 60-80 nm or less. At such small throat heights, the conventional trailing shield 22 may saturate during operation of the transducer. The conventional trailing shield may, therefore, be unable to adequately shield the pole 14 from the media and vice versa. At higher densities, the track width, TW, of the conventional pole 14 also decreases. At such higher densities, the gradient in the magnetic field from the write pole 14 may be lower than is desired. Thus, a disk drive using the conventional transducer 10 may be subject to error.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method for providing a write transducer having improved performance at higher densities.